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My wife and I work at the same place and today the board approved a cost of living increase to go along with our merit raises (we're local government, basically) so we're both getting a 4.5% boost this year. Not earth shattering but I'll gladly take what I can get, hopefully it will counteract the "tax cliff" thing if nothing else.
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Dec 19, 2012 17:42
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Just received approval of my request to remove PMI from my mortgage. It was only $17.10 since we refinanced last summer, but hey - free money!
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May 10, 2013 23:50
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Not all that exciting but we canceled our dish subscription. Saving $69/mo (after counting netflix) isn't too shabby!
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Jun 10, 2013 21:01
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canyoneer posted:Congratulations! Pretty sure they're worth nothing. We had a DirectTV one on our house and the only remotely valuable part in the LNBs. The only reason I know that is Dish had me send them back with the receiver and remote.
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Jun 11, 2013 20:32
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Another incremental improvement to report. Today we had out health insurance meeting. Changing our insurance plan to one that is a smaller network. We've been very fortunate thus far with our health so we're taking a gamble I guess but they claim 90% of the people don't need the larger network, and when they use it it's mostly for pre-existing conditions. So hopefully we won't regret that. In the end it looks like we're going to be saving ~$90/mo net. Quick tally of the last couple of months: + Saved $17/mo on PMI removed from our mortgage + Saved $76/mo from eliminating Dish Network + Save ~$90/mo from health insurance change - Spending $8 on netflix About a $175/mo decrease in monthly expenses  On the other hand we're fixing up our house so money is seemingly flying out the window, but at least we're doing it ourselves and probably saving 90% of the cost of paying someone to do it.
dreesemonkey fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Jun 13, 2013 |
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Jun 13, 2013 19:03
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I don't really care about my credit score since I don't want to borrow money again, but since I got a lowes card a few months back and started using it (paying it in full each time, of course), my credit score jumped almost 20 points this month. 831, holy gently caress.  Useless bragpost, I know. Just wanted to share somewhere.
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Jul 11, 2013 15:03
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moana posted:Congrats dev, that is kickass! That is definitely something to be proud of, nice job! Both my wife and I are over 30 and we've yet to hit $100k combined  Bleh.
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Jul 16, 2013 14:55
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dreesemonkey posted:Another incremental improvement to report. Today we had out health insurance meeting. Changing our insurance plan to one that is a smaller network. We've been very fortunate thus far with our health so we're taking a gamble I guess but they claim 90% of the people don't need the larger network, and when they use it it's mostly for pre-existing conditions. So hopefully we won't regret that. In the end it looks like we're going to be saving ~$90/mo net. Got my first paycheck with our health insurance change, and my guess was pretty good, it'll be about $90/mo difference, which is awesome. In other (minor) incremental news, my little sister, a recent college grad, is going to be paying towards her own cellphone plan now to our other sister, which will save us another $30/mo. These savings will likely just go to grocery giftcards / care packages for her since her fellowship doesn't pay much at all and we'd like to still do something for her.
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Jul 26, 2013 14:48
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razz posted:You're paying other people's cell phone bills? Yes, I'm 9 years older than my younger sister so it was a nice thing we could do for her while she was in college. I'm surprised how much people question this on here, does no one else like their siblings?
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Jul 28, 2013 23:49
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spinst posted:Teacher Loan Forgiveness Application: Approved That's great. Do you get taxed on the forgiven amount?
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Aug 20, 2013 19:58
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CornHolio posted:Defiant until the end, I disregarded the BFC advice of 'do never buy' and am buying a house. Whether that's getting either ahead or back behind, I'm not terribly sure. Oh boy. Congrats anyway. What ever happened with your job? Did you find something else or relocate?
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Oct 6, 2013 14:11
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BossRighteous posted:I am statistically underpaid, working as a developer in a small company. I voiced my concerns about this and the owners were receptive. I presented working part-time for higher pay as a compromise to the increased costs and they have voiced interest. As it stands they can to alter my pay to: This is really cool. I'm in a similar situation at work and I think if I were in a more stable place in life (aka not 30 and a parent of a young child) I'd definitely think about presenting similar options for my employer. At the moment, I'm paying for the job security with being incredibly busy. Being a local government employee really limits the types of raises / employment changes anyone working in the private sector can work out, but I really like the different options you've come up with.
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Oct 14, 2013 17:04
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dreesemonkey posted:My wife and I work at the same place and today the board approved a cost of living increase to go along with our merit raises (we're local government, basically) so we're both getting a 4.5% boost this year. Not earth shattering but I'll gladly take what I can get, hopefully it will counteract the "tax cliff" thing if nothing else. Quoting myself from last year. This year the board approved a 2.5% cost of living increase. My wife and I still receive merit increases of 2.5% so it's an effective 5% raise for each of us. My approximate calculations say this is right around a $250/mo net increase, which will certainly come in handy.
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Dec 19, 2013 14:14
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razz posted:Phone stuff If you just have dumbphones (and don't use them a whole lot), you could probably do just a tracfone or something and get one of the phones that doubles your minutes that you buy. I think it's one of the cheapest ways to have a cellphone if they're just occasional use type things. Just FYI.
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Jan 2, 2014 17:26
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Yea that's really really awesome. You should be proud, Guinness! I have a weird milestone incremental improvement. Just a few weeks ago my checking/savings + retirement accounts have a larger balance than my mortgage, so in quicken I'm finally seeing a black number instead of a red one. This isn't taking any equity in our home into account, so it's more like a (semi)liquid net worth.  Since someone is going to ask - Money market = Savings. Christmas Shares = Car/Life insurance, home heating expenses, etc. Regular shares = Car maintenance / repair
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Jun 6, 2014 13:42
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I got a raise at work today. I've been "the only guy" on a hilariously enormous project here at work and administration recognized the effort I've been putting in. Between this jump and our annual merit raises (and possible cost of living), it should be around a 10% jump between now and January. I deserve more, but we're public sector and things like this happen very rarely here so I'll take it. We're having our second child in 2 weeks and my wife will be off for 3 months so it comes at a good time, as well.
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Oct 23, 2014 19:15
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Pro: - I opened a 529 educational savings plan for my 4 week old daughter today Con: - My son's 529 monthly recurring deposit is now halved thanks to his sister. Sorry dude! - It's not "no student loan worries" kind of money. Sorry kids! This might get you through a year if we're lucky.
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Dec 12, 2014 22:24
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moana posted:Holy woot, just broke a quarter million dollars in income for the year! If you had told little kid me that someday I would be writing novels for a living, I would not have believed it. I doubt I'll pull it off again next year since I'd like to work less, not more, but saving most of this year's money should last me a while  Nice work moana
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Dec 17, 2014 21:43
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+ Last month we paid off our new car we bought in August (2015 Hyundai Sonata) + My wife and I received 4.5% raises which will be an additional ~$240/mo net + I bought YNAB to get us away from looking at our bank account and instead assigning jobs to dollars + (Non financial) Work is finally slowing down a bit so I can enjoy keeping my work to work hours. - Next month two kids will be going to daycare to the tune of ~$1100/mo, but at least my wife will start getting paychecks again soon and if we're YNABing better we'll be fine.
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Jan 9, 2015 17:50
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moana posted:Yeah, well-- How do richy riches like you even get to fund a roth?  Nevermind, AGI limits for Roth is like $181k and you're probably getting boned pretty hard for taxes on your sales.
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Jan 9, 2015 20:56
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At almost 33, my retirement savings (403b, Roth IRA) are about 130% of my current annual salary. Including my wife's retirement savings, we're right around 104% of our annual salary. I think I read a really general rule of thumb somewhere to have 1 years salary in retirement by age 30 or something, so I think we're not too far behind the ideal. The only thing that I have going for me is that I've been in the workforce for 13 years. We should honestly be saving much more towards retirement but with two kids in daycare, a 15 year mortgage, we're front-loading a lot of expenses it seems.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:08
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In an unprecedented double-post I got the paperwork filled out today to move my Roth IRA to Vanguard to one of their target funds because I'm lazy and clueless. I was going to do this a year or two ago and then  "Getting the paperwork filled out" involved opening an account at a local bank since I needed a medallion signature guarantee and they won't do it for non-members. Oh well, will be good to have a local bank that I can bug for stupid poo poo, use their change machine, etc.I plan to move my wife's Roth IRA as well, using mine as the test case.
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May 1, 2015 21:11
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Nail Rat posted:Just got a 15% raise after getting an 11% raise last year (that had put me at low-six figures). Maxing all retirement accounts, here I come Very cool! My incremental improvement is paying a lawyer to setup our will / living will / trust / blah blah stuff so if my wife and I were killed we have our poo poo in order. Basically paying them so we can casually mention in conversation our "kid's trust fund" as if we had money.
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Aug 4, 2015 15:46
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:For the past year I've been adding additional principle payments to my mortgage every month. My original loan terms were $203K with a fixed rate 30 year mortgage at 6.75% in 2009. I financed way too much of the value of the home. Did/Do you not have enough equity to refinance? That's a pretty turd sandwich rate. We went from 5.75% in 2009 (30 yr) to 3.375% (15yr) in 2013 and our payment only went up ~$80/mo (which was a wash since we had been putting $100 towards principal each month on the 30yr).
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Jan 6, 2016 14:20
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We got our tax return today (which was way too much) and it's been blissfully boring trying to figure out what to do with the money. I very much credit YNAB and just better overall planning in general to being at the point where we're like "Uhhhh, so what do we do with this extra month of income? Save it, I guess?" There is nothing that we immediately need, and one really expensive medical mistake has already been budgeted and saved for so it's just uninspired "Extra money to all YNAB savings categories" kind of thing. It's glorious.
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Feb 10, 2016 17:18
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Devian666 posted:Congrats on the positive net worth. It's a major milestone that I like seeing around here. I did this a few years ago. We went from 5.75% (30yr) to 3.375% (15yr) and my payments went up about ~$80 or something.
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Apr 4, 2016 13:42
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Changed my auto and home insurance today, will save me $515 next year for same/better coverage  I also submitted my request to my lender to remove escrow from my mortgage, I could never find an escrow statement to see if payments were made on time (get discounts for property taxes if they're paid early) and to me it was kind of a black box. I'd rather just build that into my budget and pay an extra ~3 bills per year.
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Nov 29, 2016 22:16
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sweet_jones posted:This is interesting, will most lenders support removing escrow? Are there unique requirements to qualify for this with your lender? My lender (a rad credit union, if it matters) only had the requirement of being 80% LTV, so pretty much just like removing PMI. All I had to do is fax a letter requesting the escrow to be closed and presumably they're working on it now. I believe I read somewhere that FHA loans are required to carry escrow for the life of the loan (I have a conventional mortgage).
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Dec 1, 2016 14:08
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It's the very definition of incremental improvement, but my wife and I both work at the same local government agency. We were approved for raise/cost of living increase this year for 5% overall. Doesn't sound like much, but it works out to about ~$290 net per month, which is great considering we're living pretty comfortably as it is. In fall 2017 my oldest will be starting school which will save us another ~$500/mo on daycare as well. There will be a supervisor position opening early 2017 which I will be applying for, the immediate pay increase wouldn't be much but I'd eventually max-out about 15% more. We'll see what happens.
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Dec 22, 2016 15:07
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:The great idiocy of many people in my generation is to sum these numbers up and decide they mean "nothing." Very nicely done, and keep up the good work. Thanks! Sometimes it's hard to stay positive while we're no where near "max 401k / Roth" money, but there is something to be said for thoughtful planning and spending at all income levels. Don't get me wrong, we're more than double the national median income in a low cost of living area so we're not exactly going hungry. It's just 15 year mortgage and kids in daycare and Roth/529 adds up to about half our net pay. But short term pain will make paying off our house and kids out of daycare so so sweet. pig slut lisa posted:I work for a local gov't too (one that's in pretty good financial shape) and our COLAs have been 2.5% the past few years with a max performance raise of 1.5% (although even top performers end up getting around 1%). Well done! Ours is a little different, even from other local government agencies around here. We have a pay steps A-Q for each payscale code 35, 38, 41, 43, etc. And assuming our annual reviews are positive enough, we get a pay step increase (41A->41B or 35L->35M or whatever) maxing out at Q. They're 2.5% steps, and we got a 2.5% COLA this year so it was a good year. There has been some talk about going to variable performance-bases merit increases, but I doubt it'll happen.
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Dec 23, 2016 14:16
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:As far as incremental improvements BFC, how did everyone do with the holidays? We overspent but not by more than $100, which I consider to be a resounding success. Looks like we'll be right on budget, we estimated $1200 for christmas. Before everyone freaks out, that includes pretty much everything christmas related, complete estimates: Gifts for kids ~400 Gifts for spouse / me ~150 Gifts for close family / friends ~200 Gifts for daycare teachers ~90 Other random gift exchanges ~50 Christmas card / stamps ~100 Christmas decor ~50 Christmas hosting food / drink ~150
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Dec 23, 2016 19:20
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Yeah, budgeting for Christmas as a year round expense is really going to enable us to enjoy it more next year. As is, we've only just switched toward actively budgeting it so we were a little more modest this year than I expect we'll be in the future. I got fairly annoyed last year that even post-christmas we were having christmas expenses so we tried to account for most of our expenses. Sounds like a lot of money, but it goes fast. To be fair, I don't think our kids even needed $200 each in gifts, they don't really need much of anything. But those years are probably numbered.
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Dec 23, 2016 19:27
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:If you want to model responsible financial behavior for your kids, try to keep Christmas simple: something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read. I just heard of this the other day, I really like the idea. Might be something to consider in the coming years, I think it might work a little better when the kids are old enough to understand it, but maybe not. Either way, should be a fun christmas year. Kids (5 and 2) are just about perfect age for being excited about everything, no matter how dumb the gift.
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Dec 23, 2016 21:37
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This is not one-upsmanship because I'm not really paying much extra on my mortgage, but for the first time the balance is under $100k Pretty awful considering we've been paying on it 7.5 years and only dropped ~$35k in principal
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Jan 5, 2017 15:59
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Anyone have any estimates of what a decent spending amount would be in retirement? I ran the personal capital retirement tool and I'm curious what I should reasonably set my spend rate at. I know it's a dumb question that varies a lot, I put in 40k as our home will be paid for and we live in a fairly low cost of living area. 50k? e: The tool was giving us a "good job bro" rating for both 40k and 50k withdrawl rate with our details (130k saved, taking social security at 62, retiring at 60, assuming our contributions are constant - when the should be increasing). I just don't know what a reasonable spend rate is and how optimistic I should be. dreesemonkey fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Jan 14, 2017 |
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Jan 14, 2017 14:01
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Handsome Ralph posted:Congrats! It's an awesome feeling . I think the only regret I have about doing it is that I kick myself sometimes for not realizing it sooner. Yea, I've been a pretty good at living within my means for a while, but it wasn't until I started "spend to your budget, not your bank balance" that things really clicked for me. It's painfully obvious having a specific plan (in my case - rather detailed) for my money is the best way to manage it.
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Mar 8, 2017 00:42
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Grumpwagon posted:Yeah, the counter-intuitive part of financial success is that it gets easier, even as the numbers to get to the next step get larger. Saving that first $1000 is huge (and frankly, 25 is not that old to be getting there, especially with no credit card debt and some retirement). Can confirm. ~10 years ago when I was just getting started in my debt free journey I thought I'd never be able to save up a few thousand dollars to buy a (lovely) car. It's pretty crazy how quickly your mindset and financial picture can change with planning and moderate discipline.
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May 3, 2017 16:55
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Very cool, tactical shitpost. I was hoping to have our house paid off by the time I turned 40, but that's not happening what with children and life - 42 or 43 should be doable. That would be right around 15 years to pay off. A small contribution to the thread, but with the market going apeshit our retirement accounts have grown nicely this year. My spouse and I are both 35ish and we have a little over 1.5 times our annual gross income in retirement accounts. I'm not sure if there is any particular metric for "have X% of your income by age Y in retirement savings", but I imagine we're doing pretty well considering we're not even close to living the "annual contribution limits" life.
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Jan 29, 2018 21:07
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dreesemonkey posted:A small contribution to the thread, but with the market going apeshit our retirement accounts have grown nicely this year. My spouse and I are both 35ish and we have a little over 1.5 times our annual gross income in retirement accounts. I'm not sure if there is any particular metric for "have X% of your income by age Y in retirement savings", but I imagine we're doing pretty well considering we're not even close to living the "annual contribution limits" life. Hey remember that time I said about the market going apeshit? 
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Feb 9, 2018 21:21
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Improvement-ish 1: - We're down to 2 nice vehicles (from 4 - 3 lovely, one nice) for the first time in a long time. But at what cost? - Because truck equity There is something to be said for having two newer, nice, dependable vehicles. I had been putting a lot of money into our used cars to keep them on the road and still driving around old hoopties, I'm probably paying twice as much for a new truck as I was keeping our old cars on the road. So I took the plunge and finally bought what I wanted. Luckily, my wife's car is paid off (2017 Accord) so living with one vehicle payment isn't too bad so far. While this isn't necessarily a financial gain, it is absolutely a quality of life improvement - one less thing to stress over. The payment fit better than I thought into our budget and it hasn't been a burden so far. Improvement 2: Another improvement is a ~5% raise this year for our household. Not earth-shattering, but appreciated. Next year will be the last year of full-time daycare payments, then we're really going to feel rich with ~$600+ a month being saved.
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Jan 24, 2019 16:44
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